1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to online document storage services and the provision of targeted advertisements.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current online storage systems available to individuals and corporations offer space for user data on the systems with a restriction merely on the size of the stored data. Indeed, such storage systems permit users to store and structure the data in any manner amenable to the user. User data in such systems are accessible with Internet browsers or with various access protocols, such as file system. Service providers of such systems ensure high availability and redundancy of the user data. Other types of online storage systems are designed to keep specialized documents and associated services. One example is Google Health (HTTP://www.google.com/health), in which individual users can store their health records and share these records securely with family members, doctors and caregivers over the Internet.
The internet has also been an important source of advertising revenue in recent years. A common form of targeted advertising is the “banner ad,” which is generally selected for insertion in web pages in accordance with keyword criteria. For example, on search engine websites, advertisements that are most relevant to keywords entered by users are selected and presented to the users, with the expectation that users entering such keywords would be interested in purchasing goods or services offered by the advertisement. Similarly, web pages themselves may be parsed for keywords to select advertisements that are relevant to keywords found on the webpage for insertion into the web page. Here, the assumption is that users who are interested in the webpage would likely be interested in purchasing goods or services offered by the advertisements.